" This must have been a particularly insulting
epithet, which no respectable boatswain could have been expected quietly to
endure, for "at once the two men fell fast to wrestling, then to blowes and
theirin grew to that feircnes that the master of the pinnace thought the
boatswain would have puled out his eies; and they toumbled on the ground
down the hill into the creeke and mire shamefully wallowing theirin."
In his pain and terror the master called out, "Hoe, the Watch! Hoe, the
Watch!" "The Watch made hast and for the present stopped the disorder, but
in his rage and distemper the boatswaine fell a-swearinge Wounds and Hart
as if he were not only angry with men but would provoke the high
and blessed God." The master of the pinnace, being freed from his
fellow-combatant, returned to Basset's house--perhaps to tell his tale
of woe, perhaps to get more liquor--and was assailed by the drummer with
amazing words of "anger and distemper used by drunken companions;" in
short, he was "verey offensive, his noyes and oathes being hearde to
the other side of the creeke." For aiding and abetting this noisy and
disgraceful spree, and also for partaking in it, Drummer Basset was fined
L5, which must have been more than his yearly salary, and in disgrace, and
possibly in disgust, quitted drumming the New Haven good people to meeting
and moved his residence to Stamford, doubtless to the relief and delight of
both magistrates and people of the former town.
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